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Abstract

In March 1954 a Japanese fishing vessel, Daigo Fukuryu Mam (Lucky Dragon No.5), suffered from radiation exposure from an American nuclear test at Bikini in the South Pacific. After this incident there appeared both in the US and in Japan a nuclear policy debate that the nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in general, and nuclear reactors in particular should be introduced into Japan in order to counter the communists' propaganda against American nuclear tests and anti-American movements in Japan. The Operation Coordinate Board of the US National Security Council adopted this policy very soon after the Bikini Incident. This was followed a wide range of strategic programs for Japan. Hidetoshi Shibata, then an executive of the Nippon Television Network Corporation, started his press campaign in January 1955 in the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun together with its owner Matsutaro Shoriki, later the first president of the Japanese Atomic Energy Commission, for promoting nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Shibata and Shoriki apparently were working together to fight against anti-nuke movements and anti-American activities in Japan. In May they invited John J. Hopkins, President of General Dynamics Corporation, Nobel laureate Ernest Lawrence from the University of California at Berkley, and Lawrence Hafstad, director of the division of reactor development of the American Atomic Energy Commission. Their talks in Tokyo were reported to have impressed many Japanese. This paper shows that Yomiuri Shimbun group's activities were in fact supported by the US government, and were carried out within the framework of the US foreign policy.